macOS 10.13.4 to Warn About 32-bit Apps Starting April 12
Apple (via Apple News and Updates):
To ensure that the apps you purchase are as advanced as the Mac you run them on, all future Mac software will eventually be required to be 64-bit.
Apple began the transition to 64-bit hardware and software technology for Mac over a decade ago, and is working with developers to transition their apps to 64-bit. At our Worldwide Developers Conference in 2017, Apple informed developers that macOS High Sierra would be the last version of macOS to run 32-bit apps without compromise.
While developers optimize their apps for 64-bit compatibility, Apple is notifying customers when they are using an app based on 32-bit technology. This is done via a one-time alert that appears when you launch a 32-bit app.
Apple’s long transition away from 32-bit software takes another step beginning April 12.
In celebration of today being 32bit-app-warning-day for macOS, I thought I’d check if I have any 32bit apps installed… The apps in blue are all from one company.
Plus DVD Player.
And the Spotlight importer that Apple ships for Microsoft Office.
Previously: macOS 10.13.4, macOS 10.13 High Sierra Released.
Update (2018-04-13): Accidental Tech Podcast discusses the wording of the warning dialog.
RIP good QuickTime Player
* QT Player 7 contains a lot of features QT X has never offered, so people keep using it
* 32 bit apps are going away
* I cheekily filed a radar suggesting Apple should update QTP 7 to 64-bit
* Apple closed my bug
Part of why we sent our movie mgr/viewer Usher into hibernation is that it relies heavily on QuickTime 7 for much of what it does.
Apple has no replacement for QT7, so with 32bit dying, Usher had to go, too.
It boggles my mind that they never replaced this tech.
QuickTime doesn’t really exist on 64 bit at all. The 64 bit QuickTime Player is not actually QuickTime. Only parts having anything to do with QuickTime left is QuickTime file support in AVFoundation.
[…]
Can’t port the classic QuickTime Player if there is no QuickTime on 64 bit.
Thanks to the 32-bit warning in macOS 10.13.4, I learned that my Fujitsu scanner software is from 2011.
Previously: ScanSnap and Sierra Update.
The biggest reason that people are up in arms about the death of QuickTime 7 Pro is that its successor, QuickTime Player X, never quite filled its shoes when it came to features.
The Pro features of QuickTime 7 include making simple edits by cutting and pasting sections of tracks, the ability to export specific tracks from a multi-track file (such as podcasters get if they use a recording utility like Ecamm’s Call Recorder), creating and viewing chapter marks within a file, and more. Most of those fell by the wayside in the far more basic QuickTime X, which is focused much more on media playback than on any editing features. (And there are those, like our friend John Siracusa, who simply want a media player where the controls don’t appear on top of the video.)
Update (2018-04-14): Jeff Johnson:
I created a new user account on 10.13.4. I got 32-bit warnings for 3rd party apps but not Apple apps (such as DVD Player). They’re definitely whitelisting.
[…]
- Create a new Mac app in Xcode with i386 arch. Run it. See warning.
- Create a new Mac app in Xcode with i386 arch and bundle id beginning with “com.apple”. Run it. Don’t see warning.
The Kindle app is also 32-bit.
Update (2018-04-15): Jeff Johnson:
People are saying that Apple’s Compressor is still 32-bit, which is interesting.
Update (2018-04-17): Erica Sadun:
This makes me immensely sad as I regularly use QTPro to perform video edits from trimming and masking to watermarking and generating image sequences. I do not know of any replacement and would love recommendations.
Microsoft Office 2008 will soon be dead as well. It’s a powerful suite of tools, especially Excel, and I will be bitterly missing its functionality. Numbers and Pages just do not compare to the publishing-standard features offered in the hideously ugly but tremendously functional suite. I do not intend to sign up for a yearly subscription. I may do something with Open Office but I’ll probably stick to Apple and hate doing so.
My own tool 32-bitCheck, available from Downloads above, goes deeper than Apple’s app check, and checks all software bundles. In doing so, it reveals that many of the components included in High Sierra 10.13.4 are still not 64-bit. This could, of course, simply be that Apple hasn’t got round to updating its own products yet. But remaining 32-bit bundles form quite a distinctive pattern, or some extraordinary coincidence.
Update (2018-04-18): John Gruber:
I still use QuickTime 7 Pro, too — I have it set as my default app to open any video file. When I checked my list of installed apps looking for any remaining 32-bit hold-outs, none of the apps I use regularly are 32-bit. But I spotted several irregularly used apps that are.
[…]
What makes QuickTime 7 Pro particularly irksome, as Moren points out, is that it’s Apple’s own software and Apple has resolutely refused to address QuickTime X’s deficiencies for over a decade, so nobody expects to ever see a full replacement for QuickTime Pro.
Update (2018-04-20): Other 32-bit apps that I have installed: GyazMail, Mailsmith, Myth II, PowerMail, ProfitTrain.
Update (2018-05-01): Rob Griffiths:
Of more interest to me are those 12 games that haven’t been updated in at least four years. In particular, eight of those 12 are still 32-bit apps, which is a big cause for concern for a couple of reasons.
Update (2019-02-01): Max Seelemann:
These 32bit app warnings on Mojave are really the worst UI Apple has done in a very long time.
These pop up at random times, for random trash apps somewhere on my disk.
I was just typing, an alert came, I hit the space bar, and was brought to the FAQ website.
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